


Convenience

by Valmouth



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Genre: Alpha Bruce, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Omega Jim, Omega Verse, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-15
Updated: 2013-04-15
Packaged: 2017-12-08 13:17:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/761754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valmouth/pseuds/Valmouth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The overcoat is too long. Too big in the shoulders, too wide in the chest, the wrong colour; the wrong fit in total and yet Bruce takes it back, and can’t resist preferring the sight of his clothing wrapped around Gordon’s smaller frame.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Convenience

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own no rights to these characters or to the wider creative universe they are derived from. I mean no offence by posting this and make no money from it.
> 
> A/N: I'm so sorry. I don't have any excuse for why I wanted to write it.

He notices things, because the habit of doing so never quite breaks. So he notices when Gordon is suddenly absent from the room.

By itself, the fact is not amazing.

This party is for a most exclusive cast of high society. The Commissioner of Police does not meet that standard, and the part of him that never stops watching the shadows from the corner of his eye wonders why Cobblepot would invite a working class cop into such a gathering.

It doesn’t fit.

But the mystery of the ‘why’ is overshadowed by Gordon’s sudden absence.

He glances around for other missing persons but there’s no one he recognises who is noticeably no longer there. Cobblepot’s squat, unlovely figure is by the table loaded with ungainly amounts of sashimi, possessive arm around a model who’s hidden her revulsion well all night.

Bruce feels for her; he’s been hiding his growing sense of urgency for the last hour and after so many years without practice, the stress is beginning to stain the edges of his easy smile.

“Excuse me,” he murmurs, and saunters off.

He finds Gordon in the library.

And this, then, is when the world comes crashing down.

Gordon’s colour is heightened, he’s breathing faster than normal. And he’s hunched over, arm wrapped around his midsection.

The smell hits him from across the room.

It’s impossible for an alpha to mistake the scent of an omega in heat.

“Get out,” Gordon says without turning around.

It’s supposed to be commanding, but it’s shaky and breaks halfway through.

Bruce shifts in swiftly and shuts the door. Plants his feet firmly, leans on his cane, and takes self-control firmly in hand. He can smell it, yes, and he has eyes and ears and the picture is enough to bring an instinctual tension to his thighs, but this situation is not yet out of control.

“Gordon,” he calls quietly.

And Gordon shudders – he can see it – and turns further away. Curls even tighter into himself.

“I’m not going to force the issue,” Bruce says, and keeps his voice even, “But you need to calm down.”

Something in Gordon’s stance stiffens. “Wayne.”

This time the tone is resigned. Tired. It’s neither better nor worse than the previous desperation.

Bruce hardens his heart. “Commissioner,” he repeats calmly.

“I should have guessed,” Gordon says.

Bruce doesn’t answer but he watches while the arm is dropped, spine straightened. Gordon doesn’t turn around, and Bruce has one ear listening for sounds beyond the door.

The longer he stays in the room, the headier the scent gets.

His nostrils flare but he bites down on the urge to stride in, to push Gordon against the nearest flat surface and bury his nose in the juncture where neck meets shoulder. The pheromones in the air are thick enough to taste and he could fall so easily.

Gordon wouldn’t struggle if he did.

If he falls hard enough, he might not care if Gordon does.

He leans heavily on his cane and tries to make himself look less intimidating.

“Turn around,” he orders quietly.

And curses inwardly. His voice is lower, deeper. Rougher.

Gordon turns his head enough to show one smooth cheek, a hint of moustache. The delicate shell of his ear is beginning to turn red at the tip and the desire to find out what it would feel like to close his mouth around the tip of that ear flashes like quicksilver through his mind.

He pushes it back.

“You need to get out of here,” he says.

Gordon nods.

“Can you make it on your own?”

Gordon doesn’t move.

He sighs. Lifts a hand and rakes it through his hair. The pressure against his scalp is just enough to blunt the sharpening edge, even if it does come from his own fingers.

“I see.”

“Can’t drive,” Gordon mumbles.

“I’ll send my driver...”

“No.”

“You can’t stay here. There are other alphas out there.”

He can see the shape of Jim’s shoulders beneath the ill-fitting hired evening jacket. He can see the line of Jim’s neck, the length of his fingers, gently crooked in rest. He can see the swell of his ass and then there’s that scent, mocking his restraint and luring him all at the same time.

The very thought of other alphas walking in brings on a wave of possessive fury.

It’s instinctive. He drops his head and he can feel the growl start in his chest.

And strangles it in his throat.

He tightens his grip on the cane instead.

He thinks later that he should have known. Bruce Wayne is no longer Batman but the ominous rumours about Cobblepot’s sudden appearance on Gotham’s business scene are loud enough to reach the top of Wayne Tower.

As it stands, he has one ear tuned to sounds outside the door so he hears the footsteps approaching.

The henchmen are huge – big and mean and seemingly carved from stone.

He is no longer Batman, but the induced heat haze is doing unspeakable things to his alpha instincts. The thought of what ordinary people could do to this omega – to his omega, no matter how fleeting the connection – is bad enough, but these are criminals.

He’s never particularly liked criminals.

His broken body is no impediment in the brief encounter. When Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum hulk into the room, he’s off to the side, looking slender and dapper in his evening suit, elegant black cane supporting his weight.

Gordon’s the one they’re here for; they’re distracted by the sight of him right there in front of them so they don’t notice anyone else’s presence. That’s their first mistake.

“The Penguin wants a word with you,” Tweedle Dee says.

Tweedle Dum actually grabs his crotch as he leers, “But we’re going to have some fun with you first.”

That’s their second mistake.

Gordon’s angry. Bruce doesn’t blame him.

He swings the cane two-handed and connects with the back of Tweedle Dum’s left knee. He follows it up with a hip throw for Tweedle Dee’s headlong dash, ramming the head of the cane straight up into Tweedle Dum’s chin to knock him out and an elegant twist around to drive the tip of the cane down into the fragile bones of Tweedle Dee’s foot.

Both men are wearing sneakers, which suggests a less than professional bent to the hired muscle, and the cane is an antique, with a narrow tip. He isn’t likely to spike the foot to Cobblepot’s parquet library floor but he puts the considerable force of his arm behind it and he can feel the bones give.

Tweedle Dee screams. High-pitched and agonised.

His pulse jumps. He’s already keyed up from the pheromones; the aggression isn’t helping matters.

Adrenaline is howling in his veins and the heat is rising rapidly to danger levels.

He grabs Tweedle Dee by the shirt and eases the pressure of his cane a scientific fraction. Tweedle Dee starts whimpering.

“Who sent you?” he asks.

He can feel Gordon’s eyes on his profile, tracing the line of his nose, his brow, his chin, his mouth. It’s the first time Gordon’s ever seen the two faces of Bruce Wayne reconciled and he’s hyperaware of his muscles bulging beneath the sleek designer clothing, flexing and restless and craving the heat of another body.

“The- the Penguin,” Tweedle Dee stutters.

“Did the Penguin arrange a heat spike too?” he demands.

Because there is no other explanation. Jim’s too old to be having heats like this. Most male omegas stop experiencing such intense flushes around forty, and have sporadic bouts of weak cramping at best in the years after. This sort of thing is only possible with chemical interference.

“Some kind of drug,” Tweedle Dee croaks, “The maid, she had a marked glass.”

It’s not the first time he’s heard of a triggered heat. From fertility drugs, usually.

And the want pools sensuously low in his abdomen at the thought.

The urge is to breed, and breed now, forgetting the rest of the world. He’s proved his dominance; he’s established himself as the primary alpha. According to all the primitive laws, the omega is his to take. His prize.

He pointedly doesn’t look at Gordon.

“I wonder if I can get this all,” he pushes harder, “The way,” he twists, “Through.”

Tweedle Dee howls.

“You tell the Penguin,” he growls, “Whoever the hell that is, to keep his hands off my omega.”

Gordon startles.

He can see the movement from the corner of his eye but he’s already let go.

They leave through the side door, leaving the mess in the library.

He’s not Batman, but he is an alpha, and alphas have been known to experience bouts of superhuman strength when their omegas are threatened. They go berserk. They perform miracles. Only Gordon knows this isn’t about alpha insanity.

Gordon’s seen the Batman in action and this is still the same man, no matter what face he wears or how broken his body.

Whatever Cobblepot’s slipped him, Jim starts to lose it by the time they’re in the carpark. A parking valet holding the car door has the effrontery to sniff the air and look too close before Bruce Wayne is in his face, easy smile betrayed by cold eyes, a hundred dollar bill offered in a hand that promises this is simply the nice way of staking his claim. A nice way that could, if he wanted, be backed up by ways less beneficial.

He rolls the partition up just in time for Jim to moan and reach out, fingers digging into his thigh.

Bruce reaches for the unobtrusive black kit Alfred still places in all the cars.

“I can sedate you,” he says. Feels the words tear themselves out of his throat.

“No,” Gordon says.

Bruce takes one touch, just one. Drops his right hand down on Gordon’s and the contact alone is perfect and wonderful and he wants, dear God, he wants now.

He could vanish into it.

The thought cools him down like an ice bath. At this point, nothing’s going to stop his need, but he doesn’t need to stop it; just control himself. He reaches one-handed for the kit again.

“Commissioner,” he says firmly, “I’m not taking advantage of you in the back of a car. Especially not if you’ve been given a dose of fertility stimulants.”

Gordon’s eyes are dark behind his glasses by this stage. His mouth is wet and red and his lips are slightly parted and even that ridiculous moustache somehow makes him look beautiful and vulnerable all at the same time.

“You don’t want this,” Bruce assures him. For himself, for Gordon; doesn’t remember.

It doesn’t matter. What matters is that the sedative is now within reach.

“I could beg you,” Gordon says suddenly, quietly, “I could drop to my knees right here and blow you. I could do that. You’d like that.”

He can feel the throb at the base of his dick, at just the spot where the knot would form. Could form. Could form inside a warm body, for the first time in years.

First time, he realises with a start, since before he ran away the very first time. He’d wanted it to happen with Rachel but it hadn’t.

Selina had never been a compatible mate. An alpha herself, though she’d bowed to his dominance. They’d played around like puppies when they were in a good mood. They’d mauled each other like animals when they weren’t. It had been fun and liberating and they’d had the chance to make it something real.

It wasn’t unheard of. It wasn’t anyone’s business but their own.

Like it wouldn’t be anyone’s business if he took Gordon right here, right now. Bred him in the back of a goddamn limousine and knotted him right here.

“Wait,” he frowns, “Your scent. Something’s wrong. Can’t be that strong.”

“What?” Gordon asks, licking his lips.

Bruce flips the kit closed again. “We need to get you to a hospital. Gotham General...”

“No,” Gordon says immediately, eyes widening, “If you won’t help me, then take me home. Leave me there. But I can’t be seen in public like this.”

He knows. He knows and he understands.

For the Commissioner to be an omega is startling. An unmated omega is even more startling. Gordon’s had a career in the spotlight and he’s taught himself to deal with aggressive alphas and betas, taught himself how to shift the focus from omega rights and omega issues to police procedure and police responsibility.

To be seen in public in a full heat phase would be humiliating. A negation of everything he’s worked so hard for. And it would give the criminals the wrong train of thought for how to handle the police commissioner.

“Fine,” he says, “No hospitals. Nowhere public. But a private doctor...”

Tommy, he thinks, Tommy Elliott will help. A surgeon but he could at least indulge a long-lost childhood friend and take a look.

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” Gordon says, and kneads the muscle hidden by the thin material beneath his hand.

Bruce groans and swallows. “Your scent,” he says, “It’s too strong. Like you were never fully mated.”

Gordon shrugs.

Bruce frowns, blinking his eyes rapidly to focus.

“Mr. Wayne.” The unwelcome interruption distracts him. “We’re here.”

He looks around vaguely, mind too preoccupied to focus on where ‘here’ is. But then Alfred’s opening the door to let in a blast of cold night air and letting out a blast of the pheromones they’d both been stewing in and he’s surprised the shock of it doesn’t given Alfred a heart attack.

As it stands, he has two responses. One, a morbid fascination with the way Alfred looks wildly surprised and then politely expressionless. Two, a possessive need to get between his omega and the outside world.

He indulges the former and doesn’t indulge the latter but it’s hard, in more ways than one.

He gets out, stiff-jointed but otherwise ambulatory.

Gordon slithers out, sensual and half-drugged on hormones and need and shockingly endearing in the unforgiving overhead light of the garage.

Alfred says, “Commissioner Gordon. A pleasure to see you again, sir.”

“Mr. Pennyworth,” Gordon says and this time he’s flushed, blinking rapidly to clear the haze, pulling his coat around him as if trying to find some more cover.

Bruce is moving before he can stop himself. Reaching out. Had Alfred not been there, he thinks dazedly, and turns the movement into something else.

“Here,” he says brusquely, and hands over his overcoat.

Gordon actually closes his eyes to inhale the alpha scent coming off the coat.

He swallows thickly and looks away. Alfred waves the driver off.

“I believe the penthouse would be more comfortable for this,” Alfred says politely, “Unless the Commissioner has an early morning?”

It’s an out. Alfred’s the supreme shepherd in the midst of domestic confusion and he’s couched both a warning and an escape plan in the gentlest terms possible.

“I’ll drive you home, Commissioner,” Bruce says.

“No,” Gordon says again.

Alfred manages to fade into the background. Bruce has very good spatial awareness so he knows he’s there, but knowing and caring are two entirely different matters.

Alfred was there to guide his first interactions with betas and omegas. Alfred’s the one who monitors his control over his instincts, who calmed him down when puberty brought aggressive outbursts and raging hormones out to play with his issues and his confusion and his eternal rage at the wrongness of the world.

For Alfred to see this – no, he doesn’t care.

“Then where do you want to go?” he demands, a touch too rough, “Do you have another mate? An arrangement?”

“No,” Gordon says, “Just my fingers and...”

The word gets lost. Dies. Flicker of the eyes to Alfred and the sight of an omega embarrassed by his own need is delightfully old-fashioned.

The darkness in Bruce, the aggressive dominance, wants to pin Gordon there and make him say it out loud. Describe it, maybe, in detail. The sheer hotness of thinking of Gordon – stoic, wry Commissioner Gordon – using his own fingers to breach himself, stretch himself before using a toy.

He wonders if Gordon bought it himself, before or after his marriage, and he wonders how big it is and what colour it is. There are fancy gadgets on the mark – some truly fetishised wonders with knobs and nodes and flexible, extendible sections. Maybe, his brain supplies, maybe Gordon has a selection.

The heat pooling low in his abdomen shoots straight to his balls.

“Master Bruce,” Alfred says sharply.

He comes back to the cold night air and the hard concrete and an old friend who deserves better than dubious consent.

“The spare bedroom is vacant,” Alfred announces. “And,” he adds, clearly giving up on subtle, “It has a lock.”

Alfred doesn’t mention which side of the door the key sits on.

Bruce tries to stay as far away as the elevator allows. Gordon seems to have retreated into his own world, his own corner, lost in his haze and his need and the smell wafting around him from the overcoat.

Technically, there was no need to give Gordon the coat. It isn’t that cold. Gordon’s likely to be heating up rather than shivering. There’s no rain, no mist, no inclement weather of any kind. And more to the point, there is no one else around, no one who gets into the elevator, and certainly no one who watches them walk out of it.

In the penthouse, it’s Alfred who ushers Gordon straight towards the bedroom. Who shuts the door behind him.

Every nerve in Bruce’s body is screaming with the desire to tear the door off the hinges and take back his omega. Given his upper body strength and the skills honed by years of tactical aggression, this is no idle threat.

To combat his own nature, he goes outside. Stands on the balcony and stares at the skyline in the night.

It’s all too easy to think of years gone by. Some of them so far back that he barely remembers himself except in flashes of too many nights studying and too much anger against the world. For the rest of it, he thinks of standing on the point of Wayne Tower, so very high above his city, and then jumping into freefall before spreading his wings.

Thinks about the signal that he still sees up there in the night sky, and the eight good months he spent with that signal as his focal point. His axis. And not for the light it shone into the dark but for what it meant when he answered it.

He thinks about the people he’s loved and lost. His parents, Tommy, Henri, Rachel, Selina. Four of them are dead; two of them are merely lost by distance and inclination. He still has Alfred. And he has Jim.

These days Jim lights the Bat signal and another man in a modified suit answers the call. His relationship with what the symbol represents is over.

These days, Bruce Wayne only has one mask, and he walks with a cane that isn’t for show.

He hates the cane.

He hates the weakness of his body when his mind is still out there, freefalling into the night before the sheer joy of spreading his wings. His mind can fight but his body is broken and that, now, is what defines him.

No longer a symbol, just himself.

And therefore no more use to the man who is occupying his spare room.

He tries not to imagine what is going on in there. Tries not to imagine how calm and soothing Alfred can be, how bewildered and ashamed Gordon must feel. Tries not to imagine if Gordon will shower to cool down, water smoothing down flushed skin and catching in chest hair going silver with the years, and the little creases of life and living and a body used as a tool rather than an ornament. Tries not to imagine the water running down the dip of the backbone, curving over Gordon’s ass and thighs and if an omega is aroused for as long as Gordon has been, hell, he’d be slick between the legs by now. Body readying itself, aching to be stretched and filled.

He tries not to imagine Gordon’s work-worn, beautifully formed hand reaching around to wash himself. Maybe so aroused that he’ll use his fingers the way he’d alluded to in the parking bay.

He groans and clutches the parapet with both hands. Squeezes until the bones protest.

But no. Gordon won’t. This is a man who can’t admit to owning a dildo. Knowing Alfred’s outside the door, he won’t fuck himself open with his fingers.

Not unless he’s trying to tempt...

He shuts down the train of thought and squeezes the parapet harder.

He wouldn’t. Bruce knows that. Gordon might tempt if he was truly out of his mind with lust but the shower would sober him somewhat. And omegas aren’t incapable of rationality in heat; it’s just that emotions can get confusing, and everything becomes fodder for the sexual urgency.

It was never like this in the old days, Bruce muses tiredly.

Gordon’s marriage had given him access to regular intercourse. He supposes suppressants would have seen to the worst of the cycles.

He’s known Gordon was an omega from the start but it hadn’t mattered. For what he wanted, it hadn’t mattered. He’d just assumed they’d go on the way they started – a vigilante and a police sergeant. He’d assumed it would last a few years; three, give or take a few years.

And now here he is, it’s twelve years later, and the Batman’s outlasted him.

He’s had no moment of absolute peace since the days he’d meditated on the top of Ra’s’ mountain, steeped in the discovery of his own strengths and weaknesses.

Ra’s had built on Alfred’s gentle guidance. For entirely different purposes, of course, but had taught him not only to control himself but to exert control on those around him.

He is struggling with that tonight.

The discreet cough behind him grates over his ears because the voice is wrong, the sound is wrong. He wants it to be someone else, making another kind of noise, and his hyper sensitised hearing catalogues the polite interruption as a poor substitute.

He turns his head enough to acknowledge it.

“I trust you know what is required of you in this situation, Master Wayne,” Alfred says.

“I can control myself,” he says shortly.

“I have no doubt of that.”

Something in Alfred’s voice makes him turn his head more fully.

The cane is still propped against the wall and he unclenches his hands from the parapet, finger by finger, until one hand can take the cane to support his weight as he turns around for a closer look.

Alfred’s dressed to go out.

The slam of urgent foreboding twists in his stomach. “Alfred?”

“I’m going out,” Alfred says without preamble.

“In the middle of the night?”

“I hear the fishing boats come in at four in the morning. I thought I’d do a snapper for lunch.”

He knows caustic mockery when he hears it. He also knows evasion.

“You don’t have to leave,” he says, “I told you, I can stay in control.”

Alfred sighs. “Master Bruce, I am not worried about your actions, whatever they might be. I merely choose to be elsewhere.”

He really has nothing more to say about it. If Alfred wants to go out at midnight, that is entirely Alfred’s prerogative.

The front door shuts with the barest hint of sound and after that there is nothing left to distract him. His knees go weak, and he leans heavily on his cane as he rides the surge. It leaves him shaken and slightly light-headed but the simple truth of the matter is that he could do anything right now, and there is no one left to stop him.

This is his territory, and he is the alpha. An omega is in half-delirious heat right here and he could claim him all he wants because Gordon’s admitted that there is no one else. No mate, no lover, no convenience. Gordon has offered him seduction in a mild, understated way; no one would blame him if he took what was so recently on offer.

He could even pretend there is no mate he’ll be compared to.

Female alphas knot around the penis in any case. It’s a different kind of intimacy, rather than less or more, but if he wants to be pedantic, Gordon’s either been privileged with his choice of lovers along the way or he’s never received a male knot before.

The alpha in him prefers the idea of being the first and only. He is possessive with what he cares for.

He takes a step to the door that separates them and then stops lying to himself. He won’t do it.

No matter what his body wants, as long as he can think somewhat coherently, he will have the strength to pull away. To pretend to be overruled by his own hormones isn’t worth the indignity.

He’s in his bedroom, cane temporarily out of reach while he limps out of the bathroom in bare feet, and Jim’s there, sitting on the edge of the bed.

He supposes if they have to do this, at least he presents as ridiculous – still half dressed in a tuxedo, barefoot, hair damp from splashing water around, braces dropped off his shoulders to hang at the waist.

“What are you doing here?” he asks.

“I should explain,” Gordon says. His voice is low, strained.

“This isn’t the time,” he starts.

“Please.”

He crosses his arms. Gordon licks his lips again and his heat, not gone but banked, starts to smoulder again. He grits his teeth and says nothing, though. Just nods.

“The scent,” Gordon says, “You said I smelled too strong. Is- is it bad?”

He can’t help the frown because it’s not what he’s expecting. “Not bad. Just strong. Omegas don’t usually retain that level of output once they’ve found their first compatible mate. Even after a divorce and separation.”

Gordon nods.

“It could be the stimulant,” Bruce muses, momentarily distracted by the science of it, “We should take a swab for comparison. A blood sample to be thorough.” A thought occurs to him. “Do you feel any unusual side effects?”

The concern spikes panic and that sharpens his tone. Makes it louder.

Gordon shivers and shakes his head immediately. “No side effects.”

“Cramps?”

“Not yet.” The tone is less than happy.

Bruce goes silent again.

Gordon leans his elbows on his knees, a surprisingly casual gesture given the circumstances. “The point is, I haven’t been mated.”

He waits for the qualifier; the ‘but’ or ‘not really’ or ‘not since the divorce’. It doesn’t come. Gordon just looks at him, stares up at him, and seems to have nothing else to complete that sentence with.

“Excuse me?”

“I haven’t been mated,” Gordon echoes simply, “Married, yes, but not mated. Barbara wasn’t compatible. We always knew that.”

His head whirls.

“Bruce?”

His blood is boiling, thundering in his veins, roaring in his ears. And suddenly all sensation is pooling down because now that his brain has made comprehensible sense out of this, it’s fired his body to do its bidding. And its bidding is to take the omega and mate, mate, mate until the bond is forged.

That terrifies him.

He knocks backwards, and with unexpected movement and no cane, one knee buckles and the other barely holds.

Gordon’s right there, small sound of distress dying in his throat as he lays hands on Bruce.

He’s being a friend, Bruce has a second to think, and then the heat and closeness and the swampy rush of pheromones wraps a hand around his heart and squeezes. The smoulders turn to lit sparks that threaten to set fire to every nerve ending in his body and he can’t breathe without inhaling the tang of earth and musk and absolute biological willingness to accept whatever he chooses to do in his lust.

“Get out,” he manages, clenching his teeth against all the other things he wants to say.

Gordon lets go and backs away, hands up.

“I’m sorry, son,” he says.

And Bruce almost doubles over as he groans. “Out,” he orders again.

“I’ll get Alfred.”

“Alfred’s not here. He’s left us alone.”

The words are coming harder now. Slurring just a little.

Gordon trembles but comes to a stop by the door. Hands clenching and unclenching.

“I won’t hurt you,” Bruce promises, “But you need to go back. Get to your room. Lock the door.”

“I’m sorry,” Gordon whispers again, and then he’s gone.

Once that’s happened, Bruce wastes no time sinking down to his knees. The pain of his disintegrating joints hitting the hard surface turns his vision to white for just a moment and then it’s gone, vanished as he shoves his pants down and leans over and bucks into his hand, growling and snarling in his frustration as he works to get himself off with his hand as a poor substitute for someone else’s body.

Even so, the need rides him hard for an hour. The knot forms, because it’s already been triggered, but it’s tenuous at best and doesn’t return for his second go.

And there is a second go. This one flat on his back on the bed.

Gordon’s been in his room and he can’t help inhaling lungfuls of air, trying to seek out the lingering traces of his omega to spur him on.

It’s been years since he’s reached this state. He hopes to hell this isn’t normal for Gordon; he’d hate to imagine how the alphas in the GCPD put up with this on a monthly basis. The betas could probably tune most of it out, but the alphas are likely to spend most of their time banging their heads against the nearest wall.

He wakes up just as the sun is rising for round three. And wakes up around seven for round four. By this point, he’s sore and the experience is mostly unpleasant. Cold and sterile. A simple practise in easing a compulsion.

He showers to get the worst of it off him and dresses for comfort rather than appearance. The slacks are loose and soft. His skin is still sensitive enough to feel it but at least it’s soothing.

Jim’s gone.

He squints at the clock and finds it’s almost noon.

Alfred’s back and says nothing. The windows, though, are wide open. The penthouse is positively draughty with the airing it’s getting.

He closes his eyes and breathes deep, just once, and feels the indefinable sense of disappointment at the loss of his omega’s scent. His instincts want to go to the guestroom, smell the sheets and maybe the towels and then follow the enticement all the way across the city if he has to. It’s the kind of thing that happens in movies – the alpha chasing the omega, the hilarity of the obstacles in their path, the way that love triumphs eternal.

His mind, however, is aware that this isn’t love. Love and sex are two separate things, and he doesn’t confuse the two. His mind is also aware that sniffing the sheets is somewhat distasteful to his pride, if not a complete waste of his time given that Alfred’s no fool, and the room’s probably stripped and bleached by now.

He seats himself firmly where he is and doesn’t act.

Which is why he’s still there twenty minutes later when Gordon walks back in the door.

Well, he says walks. There’s a knock, Alfred opens it, Gordon strides in.

There’s still a faint trace of the omega scent in the air but it’s masked now by plain old human and his own alpha strain, and he can feel the prickle roll down the surface of his skin beneath his clothes, somehow deadening the sensations that have plagued him since Cobblepot’s party.

“Mr. Wayne,” Gordon says, “I came to thank you for last night.”

Alfred discreetly slips away.

He watches for a few seconds, clearing his mind enough to turn things over in his head. And then he stands up, reaching for the cane and using it to walk a few paces forward.

He doesn’t always use it in the privacy of his own home but he feels the need to present as an alpha who isn’t intimidating. A way to even the playing field.

They have worked as equals in the past, and there is no reason to suppose they cannot meet as equals now.

“That’s unnecessary,” he points out.

And Gordon’s lips twitch. Just once.

He smiles in return. The tight stress of self-control slowly starts to unwind.

“The Penguin?” he asks carefully.

“It’s an ongoing police investigation, Mr. Wayne,” Gordon says calmly, “I’m sure you understand the GCPD’s policy of discretion.”

“Of course.”

Gordon’s hands are in the pockets of his overcoat.

Bruce narrows his eyes.

Not, he realises, Gordon’s overcoat.

Something must have shown in his face, the direction of his stare, because Gordon clears his throat and nods. “I was hoping to discuss a proposition with you.”

His spatial awareness tells him that Alfred’s somewhere in the apartment. It’s noon, which means he’s meeting two city councillors and a congressman for drinks at the Law Club in two hours, and sometime before then he has a few phone calls to make.

None of which is as important as the man standing in front of him.

“Last night wasn’t the first time I went through something like that,” Gordon says easily, “It’s no secret that the Commissioner of Police is an omega and scumbags like to push their luck sometimes. I can usually handle it but when the situation gets bad, well, I admit it’s good to have someone else around. Someone I can trust.”

“I assume you’re talking about a relationship of convenience.”

“Would it be impossible?” Gordon asks seriously. “I know I’m a little old and all I’m asking for is a two month trial. I don’t really get heats like that anymore but just until this imbalance has worked itself out of my system, I’d prefer some back-up.”

“Why me?” Bruce asks.

Gordon blinks. And looks genuinely surprised. “You’re the wrong person asking that question, son. If you say ‘yes’, I’m the one who’s supposed to say ‘why me’. You’re attractive, you’re an alpha with proven self-control, and I trust you.”

“If I said ‘yes’,” he replies, “It would be for the same reasons, I suppose.”

He keeps his voice light, calm. They’re discussing this like rational adults and he appreciates the honesty. Even if it does confuse him.

“You’ve never been interested before, Jim.”

“I had a wife,” Gordon sighs, “My loyalty was to her. I couldn’t go off looking for something on the side. It wouldn’t have been right. After the divorce, you weren’t around anymore.”

“And now I am.”

“If you have other commitments...”

“None.” Bruce waves a hand at his cane. “I warn you there will be some adjustments to be made.”

“I’m expecting that. For both of us.”

The silence descends for two seconds that feel oddly comfortable.

“You seem in control this morning,” Bruce observes.

Gordon lifts his hands out of the pockets of the overcoat and takes it off. Slowly.

The immediate rush of pheromones smacks Bruce in the face like a fist.

“Oh,” he says, and steels himself.

“Your scent keeps it down, masks it. Usually Stephens gives me his coat. His wife doesn’t mind,” Gordon says wryly, “Here. I suppose I should give this back.”

The coat is too long. Too big in the shoulders, too big in the chest, the wrong colour; the wrong fit in total and yet Bruce takes it back, and can’t resist preferring the sight of it draped over Gordon’s smaller frame.

“Wayne...”

“Bruce,” he insists, and drops the coat over the nearest chair. Lets his voice drop lower, and says conversationally, “You’re taking the rest of the day off.”

Gordon shivers. “Listen...”

Bruce raises his eyebrows.

The rest of the protest trails away. Gordon swallows. The line of his throat shifts, and even beneath the loosening of age, the gesture is a pretty little lure that buzzes pleasantly in his veins

He waits until he has complete attention before he starts – “We should do it every heat. Three days a month. You can let me know when that is and I’ll clear my schedule. Regular sessions should drop the intensity. We re-assess the situation in two months but you can walk away at any time. I don’t expect a mating or anything, but I am likely to concern myself in most matters of your care and wellbeing.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Gordon points out.

“It’s who I am,” Bruce says unapologetically, “It’s the only way I can do this. I don’t intend to interfere in your work. In any capacity.”

Gordon swallows again.

“Do you have any triggers I should know about?” Bruce asks.

Gordon shakes his head.

“Have you taken a male knot before?”

Hesitation, and then another shake of the head.

His gut clenches and his nostrils flare. He stands firm, though he chooses not to disguise his evident reaction to the prospect. Allows Gordon to see it and process it, and then assesses the reaction to see if it’s welcome, or feared, or a combination of both.

The next words that slip out, do so against his better judgement – “Are you wet right now?”

This time the flush goes all the way up Gordon’s cheeks, across his ears, and down his neck. The jawline tenses but he doesn’t see anything beyond embarrassment and heat on his omega’s face. Even without the gathering sensitivity of an alpha’s arousal he can recognise the signs of fear.

Gordon’s breathing is faster, his colour is heightened, but he isn’t afraid.

It’s a step forward.

He walks closer. Strolls, even. Makes sure it takes a few seconds though in reality he leaves enough of a span between them to observe niceties. Uses his height and his build to project his dominance and checks to see if this is acceptable.

Gordon shivers.

He reaches out to touch.

Can’t help it.

It’s an involuntary response and very soon after that, they end up in the guest room, messing up Alfred’s crisp, fresh sheets and completely unconcerned as the heat winds itself around them.

He’s almost too rough dragging Jim’s glasses off but he wants those eyes without any barriers in the way. Likes that his omega is near-sighted and needs him close to see him. Likes the way Jim’s skin tastes beneath his tongue; the warmth of him.

When Gordon turns his head instinctively to bare his throat, Bruce has to hold back from biting down.

Marking is something they haven’t discussed. It is expected in a heat haze but the mark will endure for a few days and the Commissioner of Police doesn’t need the speculation of being someone’s good little omega bitch.

He kisses instead, and sucks enough to leave sensation only. Even when Jim groans and twitches, arches his neck in a silent plea for more.

 He wants, oh god, he wants, but self-control, once he exerts it, is hard to turn off. He can’t turn off his brain, in fact, and he’s thinking about the practicalities of how this will work. He’s thinking about marks and restraints. About fertility drugs and induced heats. About getting Jim’s number into his phone and informing his executive assistant to forward all calls from Gotham’s Commissioner. He’s thinking about his bad knees and the best position to use.

And then Jim touches his face.

“Bruce,” he says.

He stills immediately, all the filters Alfred’s instilled in him for ‘don’t’ or ‘no’ or ‘hurts’ bleeding into yet more filters Ra’s has set in place for body language and tone of voice.

“Do you want to stop?” he asks.

His voice is peculiarly steady. He can hear it and it astounds him.

Because the fog is beginning to take away the edges of the room, the whole world narrowing down to the omega stretched out and available beneath him.

“Need to know,” Jim says breathlessly, “If you’re okay with this. Please.”

It’s ridiculous for an omega to ask him for consent. The world is spinning backwards but then again, this is Gordon, and for the first time in what feels like years, Bruce smiles. Small and heated and definitely predatory.

Leans down to brush his nose against skin already damp with sweat.

“I promise you, I’m looking forward to it,” he whispers.

And Jim dissolves right there beneath him.

It slips past him after that. There is no Batman, no Commissioner – nobody who means anybody to the outside world. Just an alpha and omega, and the heat driving them to completion.

Jim takes to the knot with a keening wail of need and Bruce doesn’t know how he’s lived without this level of completion for so long. The pressure and the heat and the wet glide of going in leaves him incapable of doing more than rutting as hard as he can into a willing body, but the warmth of pulling his omega close when it’s over feeds some odd little section of his instincts that he hadn’t realised was so starved.

He’s incapable of words, and settles for sounds – rumbling huffs of breath, brushed lips across Jim’s skin – and his omega seems to find this amusing. Runs gentle fingers through his hair and kneads the back of his neck with a kind of satiated absent-mindedness.

It is both more intense than his experience during the night, and far less tiring.

“I think it’s fading,” Gordon says, and sits up.

Winces.

Which Bruce tenses at.

“Did I hurt you?” he asks.

“No, I’m fine,” Gordon says, and then adds, “Just sore. I, er, don’t recover fast these days.”

“Neither do I,” Bruce says, and uses the strength in his shoulders and arms to pull himself to a sitting position. It keeps the pressure off his legs, stops some amount of pain in his knees.

He knows the awkward movement is noticed, though neither of them comment on it.

His role in this is clear. Mostly it’s a series of traditions – food and comfort, care provision. In reality, Alfred’s left them a tray outside the door and there’s a perfectly decadent shower in his bathroom. He insists on offering both to his omega.

Jim indulges him, shaking his head as he goes.

It’s still gratifying to watch his omega clean up and eat, to know he’s laid these things down in exchange and they’ve been found acceptable. The dynamic requires more than just sex.

Jim deserves more than just a biological imperative.

In this, he’s allowed to touch and take as much as he likes, where and when he likes, and it is expected that the omega will submit to his wishes. Within reason.

He chooses, out of deference to their history, to re-assert his self-control instead. A brief brush of fingers when he hands the tray over, a protective concern over blankets and curtains and locked doors, but he holds back on the touching. Jim has never struck him as the kind of omega who appreciates being pulled and pushed about, and certainly the age difference makes for a degree of unease.

Not, he reminds himself, that it is unheard of. But if an alpha chooses to mate for fun or for children, there are very few reasons to choose a much older omega to do it with.

It’s with a surge of amusement and amazement that he realises Jim is being quietly erotic with the food, watching him from under his eyelashes to see if and when he’ll recognise what’s going on right under his nose.

He doesn’t say anything but he watches right back. And somehow it turns into a silent struggle to see which of them will tire of the game first.

Bruce can feel himself twitch when Jim shamelessly sucks his fingers, a hint of tongue slipping out to curl around the digits.

The second wave hits mere seconds later.

It comes in a rush of damp on the sheets and the tray with whatever remains of the food ends up tossed over the side of the bed.

The mating this time is rougher. And doesn’t last as long.

They’re already sore from the first round, and Bruce is doubly sore from having to masturbate through the night to take the edge off. When it’s over and they’re finally unknotted, Jim drops a hand down to stroke gently at his softening dick.

He shifts uncomfortably and bites back a whimper.

It’s shaming for an alpha to suggest that he’s not up to the task of satisfying his lover. His ego is not especially fragile – and Jim knows him better than to laugh at his vulnerability – but it goes against his nature to admit defeat.

The third time takes long enough that they get a few hours of sleep before he wakes up to the insistent press of Jim’s erection against his hip. He staves it off with mouth and fingers and it’s been decades since he’s tasted the secretions of an omega, has forgotten how his senses interpret bodily fluids on this level of interaction, and sore or not, he almost loses his own mind in his need to pin his omega down and push into him.

He doesn’t, and it isn’t particularly satisfying for either of them. Jim is twitchy and restless when it’s over, and it’s no surprise that he goes back into heat inside of an hour.

Gordon’s tired by this point, age and strain rendering him almost too inert to respond with much physical passion.

Bruce curls around him, over him, pushes into him, touches as much skin as he can reach because this man was once at the heart of his entire world and even if this is the only time – he holds that thought to the back of his mind – the only time he ever sees this side of him, he’s not planning to let him walk out before he’s marked every inch with his own scent.

He won’t bite. He won’t bruise. He will not hurt unless Jim asks him for it and even then he will need persuading. But this, this scent-marking, this he can manage.

Wants to, in fact; wants everyone in a ten mile radius to sense him on Jim, and know this is his omega. His property. More than that, this is his talisman of protection, such as it is.

He is no longer the Batman. Someone else answers that signal these days. But if anyone touches his omega, they will deal with him.

He growls, low and rough, and kisses that open, panting mouth hard enough to steal the breath Gordon is struggling to catch. Kisses him until Gordon’s a wreck, writhing beneath his weight and his heat and trying somehow to beg without having the energy to form the words.

He gives him as much as he can and if it hurts to exert that pressure on his knees and his back, he doesn’t care. Will pay a hundred times over for the surge of dark lust that sweeps over him when his omega keens beneath him and falls apart.

 The knot is almost torture to get in. He’s so sore it actually hurts but he’s taken worse for much less, and the pleasure at the end makes everything better.

Alphas at the end of a heat thrum with endorphins and adrenalines, drunk on their own mating success. Omegas mostly pass out after the strain of compulsion.

He cleans them up and Jim’s already out like a light, lax and loose, and he has to fight his nature to keep his hands to himself.

He can’t fight everything, however.

He leaves the bedroom that night.

Even Bane’s men never found the secret chamber in his apartment. Unaware of his mask or simply careless, he doesn’t know. But for all that Alfred tells him the penthouse was trashed, everything in the emergency bunker is still as it was when he once battled the Joker.

He stills briefly, a stray sadness catching him as he remembers Rachel. Her face, her smile, the feel of her lips the three brief times she let him kiss her. The smell of her pheromones, utterly different to any other omega he’s ever met.

Eight years he spent mourning her, unusual even for an alpha. But now the spell is broken and he has nothing to tie him, no promises to hold him loyal to a dead woman’s memory.

He hasn’t used this space for the purpose he meant it for since her death.

He starts now.

The law enforcement servers have changed, security is up on almost every system he once had access to. He triggers an alarm on the FBI database but his brain hasn’t atrophied in the same way as the muscle in his calves. Code runs through his fingertips like thought and the old ways were so advanced for their time that they still work.

Absently, he turns on the security system in the spare room and in one corner of the screen, his omega sleeps.

The aggression in his blood is still singing and all he has to go on is a name – the Penguin. But then one clue is all he’s ever needed.

 


End file.
